For all of those getting excited about Hikaru in the candidates, keep in mind the 3 strongest players in the world who aren't Magnus didn't play in the FIDE Grand Prix for various reasons: Alireza Firouzja (already qualified), Ding Liren (weird travel restrictions) and Fabi (already qualified).
At least two of them and likely all 3 are going to be in the candidates, so this is just going to be an entirely different level of competition. The betting odds put Hikaru at <10% chance to win, which seems about right to me. Hikaru was also in trouble at various times in the FIDE Grand Prix but escaped some very bad positions with draws, which against higher level competition he might not be so lucky.
I'm not necessarily a Hikaru fan, but I enjoyed his post-game recaps after the grand prix matches, because that type of analysis isn't something any other top level players are going to do for fear of revealing some weaknesses that opponents can seize upon (and believe me... Hikaru's opponent's teams will be scouting those videos). However, not caring can only get you so far as the level of competition increases.
It's so weird to see so many people online going out of their way to explain why Hikaru won't do well. The eagerness to discredit him is just perplexing.
He's earned the recognition already, he's a former #2 in the world and one of only a handful of players to ever have an ELO over 2800. Just enjoy his resurgence and see where it takes him.
Gotham is my favorite, and he's "not even a GM". But once you're 1000+ points higher than me, it just doesn't matter. All these guys and gals are so indescribably better than me at chess, that I'm choosing based on communication and other intangibles.
I'm not coming to his defense. I'm just making a point that the arguments against him 1) aren't that great and 2) usually come from a place of animosity towards Hikaru (he's abrasive, I get it).
I don't think anything about that comment was discrediting (and I generally enjoy Hikaru's content!). He was solidly middle of the pack in the Grand Prix, but he's going to be tied for lowest rating in the candidates.
That's an exceedingly good argument that he's unlikely to do particularly well (and it's likely his betting market is somewhat inflated by his fan base, his real odds are probably lower!)
"Hikaru was solidly middle of the pack in the Grand Prix..." after winning the first Grand Prix in Berlin ... And assuring himself a place in the candidates tournament before the final Grand Prix had even finished?
I point out that its odd the number of people going out of their way to discredit Hikaru, so a bunch more people follow up by doubling down on discrediting Hikaru.
Anyways, if you're familiar with what makes Hikaru great, you understand why Hikaru has as good a chance as anyone.
> Hikaru was solidly middle of the pack in the Grand Prix...
This is factually true. He was like 6/16 in elo in the first and 7/16 in the third leg. He'll be 8/8 in the candidates. Literally nothing I've said discredits him. His performance was unexpectedly strong, that's giving extra credit for an impressive performance. But I'm also realistic.
> Anyways, if you're familiar with what makes Hikaru great, you understand why Hikaru has as good a chance as anyone.
Lol no, and Hikaru would be the first to tell you he has at most an outside chance. You claim you're not defending Hikaru, but you really, really are. In fact, you're reading things into comments that weren't actually said, and assuming these things that weren't actually said are criticisms of Hikaru and it's worth asking yourself why you're doing that.
Actually Hikaru would be (as of today) 6/8 among the Candidates in classical ELO, as the world #11 in live ratings. If anything, Hikaru is probably underrated; he gained around 20 ELO points in the two Grand Prix legs. Like the OP, I'll disclaim being a Hikaru apologist; but he is world #1 in blitz and world #2 (briefly #1 this year) in rapid rating, which is why, for example, http://universalrating.com/ratings.php has him as world #2 in general playing strength. If a game gets into time trouble in the Candidates, he's the favorite against any of the competition. It seems his strategy is just to survive the openings and then try to outplay or flag people later on, which is a surprisingly viable strategy.
Who is he higher than? He's tied for last as of current ratings on the fide website, or does that not yet include results from grand prix round 3? (Which would put him ahead of Teimor and Duda, presumably)
> seems his strategy is just to survive the openings and then try to outplay or flag people later on, which is a surprisingly viable strategy.
This doesn't work when people are both stronger middlegame players than you and know your strategy. And of course Ian and Alireza are liable to put hikaru in time pressure even if they don't straight outplay him.
As sibling comment says, he's higher than Duda + Radjabov in live ratings now.
It's just not obvious to me that any of your statements about the other players being so much stronger than Hikaru are true. It's really hard to objectively estimate his classical playing strength because he just didn't play for two years and the rating has been volatile since he started playing again, but (for example) he played 4 classical games with Levon Aronian between the two legs with a +1 -1 =2 score, and +2 -0 =0 in rapid tiebreaks. Aronian is a roughly 2780 player, world #5, likely to be the strongest player who missed candidates. Hikaru also scored 50% in classical Grand Prix matches with Wesley So and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, two other strong top-10 players.
My argument would be something like: Aronian was the strongest player Hikaru played (and was the highest rated player in both Grand Prix events Hikaru participated in). Depending on how you determine things, either 3 or 5 of the participants are rated higher than Aronian is/was in classical, and Naka won't be able to rely on winning the rapid against any of Ian, Duda, Alireza, Ding, Rapport or even Caruana, because they're not 150 points worse than him in Rapid (well except Alireza but that's probably inaccurate).
If the best Hikaru can do is draw against So and Aronian, that's not going to cut it in the candidates. Maybe he can o better than that, but there's nothing we've seen that suggests that.
"Naka won't be able to rely on winning the rapid against any of Ian, Duda, Alireza, Ding, Rapport or even Caruana,"
Remember way back in 2021 when Hikaru won the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz? Going undefeated in the entire event ahead of Caruana, Rapport, So, Mamedyarov...
Furthermore, Hikaru has always outplayed Nepo. His lifetime record against him including rapid/blitz is 19 to 12, with 29 draws.
Hikaru also drastically out performs Duda: 26 to 9, with 17 draws.
So, obviously Hikaru is rated lower than most of the players in the candidates, even with the recent surge. It's equally obvious that he's a much stronger player than he was going into his semi-retirement a few years ago. The question is, given his recent 2800+ tournament performance ratings and dominance in all time controls that he's played over the last year, is his actual playing strength back at the 2800+, world #2 level it used to be? It's entirely plausible based on what we see, and lots of chess people think that he, indeed, as strong of a player as he looks. That would make him competitive in the candidates (though, that is a total crapshoot, and no one is a "favorite" to win.)
You seem to have no sporting understanding of how the Grand Prix tournament works. His goal was to qualify for the candidates, he did exactly as much as was needed for that, nothing more. His positioning within the field is completely meaningless from a results perspective considering he won the only meaningful prize of qualifying for the candidates. The fact that you're misunderstanding the significance of that tells me you don't really understand any of this.
I guarantee you every top chess player is favoring Hikaru a lot more than you are. Even Danya has said as much. People that know, know. It's that simple.
I've never said anything about Hikarus performance or goal in the Grand Prix. I said he was middle of the pack going in. You're trying to argue about things I never said, to defend hikaru against accusations I never made. Which is fine, but admit you're defending him if you're going to do that, don't pretend you aren't.
At this point I'm just refuting absurd chess arguments more than I'm defending Hikaru. Objectively Hikaru is one of the best places in the world. I'd make similar defenses for most players on his level.
Your criticisms so far have little to do with actual chess, despite your attempts to make them as such. You have a clear bias mixed with a casual understanding of the game and it doesn't hold up very well.
> Objectively Hikaru is one of the best places in the world. I'd make similar defenses for most players on his level.
Yes, as are many of the players he beat in the Grand Prix, most of whom would stand no chance whatsoever in the candidates. One can acknowledge that he's one of the best players while also acknowledging that he's clearly not one of the top 3 in classical chess.
He knows that too. That doesn't mean I don't look forward to him competing and seeing how he does. I do! Despite what you think I like Hikaru and enjoy his content and play! But like I said, I'm realistic about his chances.
Unclear when we are talking about someone who has played 10 classical games in the last 2.5 years with a performance clearly above his rating in the only competition he was in (last month).
His live rating takes his performance into account. And it's more likely that the high performance was luck, since every player has good and bad streaks around their rating. A few wins does not magically make one a solid 2800 player.
As such, since Nak's current rating fully accounts for his last performance, and even with that (which even he says was simply good luck, not some fundamental new mastery of chess), Nak is currently live rated at 6th of 8 candidates (assuming Ding is the last one, which seems likely)).
So, given that it's more likely for a player to have random ups and downs (as borne out by millions of games of chess evidence across all players, including Nak), Naks performance last month is most likely above his rating.
You can argue all you want about what you feel. The ratings are a much more solid prediction of performance than all the good feelings in the world, especially since most of the Candidates have performed at the current level of ratings for years and years and years, including Nak.
he's a very volatile player, both in temperament as well as in playstyle. When he plays well, he plays really well but his up and downs are extreme. And if there's one tendency, in particular in modern chess, it's that rock solid consistency is a requirement for pretty much any world champion.
I see Hikaru similar to Ivanchuk (who also peaked at nr. 2 in the world). Brilliant player but rarely the favorite for long chess competitions.
He also won 3 times on demand, including against Levon Aronian.
> but escaped some very bad positions with draws, which against higher level competition he might not be so lucky.
Hikaru is well-known for being able to defend insanely well, and highly capable of escaping with draws against any level of player. This is such a strangely critically toned comment.
How many times has he lost the big game on demand? He's good, but he plays around his rating. The Candidates will be a whole different level than he's played in for years.
>I'm not necessarily a Hikaru fan, but I enjoyed his post-game recaps after the grand prix matches, because that type of analysis isn't something any other top level players are going to do for fear of revealing some weaknesses that opponents can seize upon (and believe me... Hikaru's opponent's teams will be scouting those videos). However, not caring can only get you so far as the level of competition increases.
Almost all of these players are on equal footing if they are given unlimited time do digest their matches after the fact. Hikarus opponents are likely gaining nothing watching him analyze his matches, as they all do it equally well.
The top GMs are made by those that can make these decisions during a match, and who can compute these faster. Given enough time, every match would be a draw
While everyone is plugging their favorite streamers allow me to plug GothamChess. Definitely most entertaining for me as well as educational, followed by the Botez sisters, Agadmator and then Hikaru. I like watching him, but he plays lines that I can’t possibly hope to remember ( I’m around 1800 blitz / bullet ), and so it’s more like watching a magician. “So guys, let’s play the sodium…”
I'm 1950 on chess.com. I know zero opening theory outside the fundamentals.
Watching Hikaru and Danya has really helped my board visualization and how I think about the game. My ideas are a lot more abstract now than they were years ago when I was still a "strong" player. I'm stronger now than ever before and I no longer actively train, and I credit this entirely to players like Hikaru helping me view the board in a drastically different way than I was previously. Something just clicked after awhile.
Interesting. Were you watching streams or YouTube? And were you doing other chess improvement work?
I’m at the same chesscom rating as you and have watched a bit of Hikaru content but somehow felt like I was procrastinating on “real chess study”. Your comment has given me an excuse to try again!
Streaming. The big realization for me was how they think through positions and allowing for vague ideas to dictate positional improvements / guide the process.
Previously I was just looking for tactics and calculating the best possible moves in a very linear manner. Now I look at the board and visualize ways the position would work better in my favor and kind of work my way back from there. Linear calculation is still required, but getting an idea first and then trying to find the path of least resistance to that idea is just so much more fluid for me.
Remove the tunnel vision and treat the entire board as an organic structure that you can reconfigure.
This is probably only beneficial after like 1700-1800 because it assumes you have a solid tactical / positional understanding obviously.
The only other "training" I do is solving puzzles but that's more out of entertainment than actual training.
That's pretty close to my list as well. For me it's GothamChess > Agadmator > Hikaru. I don't care about the Botez sisters. But I watch only on Youtube.
1. GothamChess is the most educational and entertaining. The video format also varies quite a bit which helps.
2. Agadmator is less entertaining than Gotham, but very consistent.
3. Hikaru is of course very strong, but sometimes he doesn't care about explaining what he's thinking and even when he does its harder to follow.
I've ben watching Gotham and Agadmator, almost daily. My wife is a bit annoyed sometimes, but I remember it could be worse. I could be into football.
I can't handle Agadmator because he skips so many important moves without analysis, and when he does provide analysis it's not very insightful. I think he's just a weaker player than the others.
Levy (GothamChess) is a much better player, although it's tedious that a lot of his content is silly stuff like laughing at beginner games. He also tilts really hard which makes me feel really bad because I just want to sit down with him and show some him positivity and I can't, but maybe that's just me.
IMO the best of the chess streamers for actually getting better is Eric Rosen, and maybe John Bartholomew but he's not as prolific. Both are very good but also good at explaining good ideas. Hikaru is almost too good to be instructive, given that he solves hard tactical puzzles completely with muscle memory instead of analysis.
Agadmator shouldn't really be seen as a game analyst, he just reads out the PGN and has the computer going in the background. His content is mostly directed towards casual chess players (or not even chess players at all, just youtube watchers interested in chess) who want to keep up with some more interesting & current high level games.
Being around 2000 myself, I agree that Agadmator’s analyses are not very deep or insightful.
Agadmator channel is educational and informative when it comes to chess scene, drama and history. In this regard, I think he’s the best and most comprehensive.
Overall I enjoy Gotham, Agadmator, Hikaru, Eric Rosen in that order.
GothamChess's friend Eric Rosen is also very good. (Actually I think he may have won their latest match.) I really like his unshakable calm attitude - even when scrambling with 5s left on the clock he still finds time to make informative little comments.
I used to play chess more but am too busy going through Blind 75 to go through chess problems. I don't even want to play a game of chess because I might feel the urge to play and study chess instead of grind Blind 75. I watch the Botez sisters as well. If I was playing more I might watch more streamers, but I hear enough of what's going on in the world of chess from them.
People suggesting other chess channels misunderstand what Hikaru is about. It's about the memes, chat spam and interaction with other non-chess streamers. He's part of a bigger Twitch community of streamers that has become like its own reality show.
It feels like Hikaru is WSB-ing Chess. I don’t mean that in a dismissive way, though. There’s a lot less downside (maybe none?) for Joe Schmoe internet n00b suddenly acquiring a fanatical interest in chess.
What I mean is that it's wrong to compare Hikaru to other chess channels. I don't watch him to get better at chess and I wouldn't be surprised if most viewers have no actual interest in chess. If they are it definitely makes sense to check out the channels in this thread but for me, as a casual Hikaru viewer, they are something else.
Well, I think there are quite a few popular chess channels that people watch without actually thinking it's going to improve their chess level. (It's actually typical of watching sports). Eg. Botez sisters (who aren't even particularly strong players, objectively), Eric Hansen, pretty much all the "banter blitz" series etc.
"I wouldn't be surprised if most viewers have no actual interest in chess"
Now I admit that this would surprise me. I might expect that of some viewers, but not the majority. Not sure if there's any way of actually verifying this though
> "Nakamura beat the crafty Hungarian Grandmaster Richárd Rapport in the first of two semifinal matches. In the video detailing his second, he explained his philosophy. “Now, one of the big differences between now and two or three years ago when I was playing chess professionally—that’s all I was doing for the most part—is that I literally don’t care,” Nakamura said. “What that means is that, in a lot of these situations now, I’ll just pick a line and play it at the board. I will not worry about trying to pick the precise line or something that I’ve looked at most recently. I will just choose to show up and play the line that I want to play.” Chess competition is stressful, and being one of the best players in the world doesn’t make it any less so. After a draw on day five of the tournament, Rapport—who won the second leg of the Grand Prix and clinched a spot in the Candidates weeks later—gave an unrelentingly brutal post-match interview, in which he called himself his toughest opponent and pondered what he could have done with his life had he not devoted it to an underfunded, unforgiving game. “I wish I had chosen something else,” Rapport said. “If I had put in a similar amount of time and energy over the years, I think I’d be a happier person as of now.”
> It is only in this context that Nakamura’s “I don’t care” mantra approaches truth. Once hailed as the future of American chess, Nakamura has devoted his life to an ultracompetitive game, one that only two or three dozen people can make a comfortable living solely from playing. As he rose up the world ranks, he treated opponents like enemies and used criticism as fuel, becoming a highly disliked member of the chess scene. In online chess, where he was known for his blitz prowess since the two-thousands, he often accused opponents of cheating and fired off nasty messages after losses. The “I literally don’t care” mantra itself is a reference to Nakamura’s bitter reaction to a fluke online loss in which he repeated the phrase many more times than one would expect from someone who literally did not care."
Hikaru is an amazing showman, he's gotten a ton of people interested in chess over the last two years. This is my favorite video from his stream in which he premoves an entire game.[0] It's edited, he didn't actually do this against Magnus, but the video is absolutely hilarious anyways, especially for how Hikaru acts while it plays out.
Eh, I find Stjepan a bit too scattered in his discussion. He takes tangents that can confuse beginners (under 1200 or so) when trying to comprehend the openings he is discussing.
Learning from online YTubers/Twitch streamers can be a mixed bag. They make the moves seem so easy and logical, without explaining a lot of the why's. Danya is one I love to watch, but he just sees things that players below his level have a hard time envisioning. Rosen is the chillest to watch, but his love of dubious gambits can encourage bad habits as well.
I don't know much about chess, but in other fields I've come to suspect the youtube video market for detailed education is both a lot smaller, and a lot more time-consuming to serve than the market for topic-themed entertainment
For example, imagine I'm restoring a classic 1980s Mini. There's a lot of detail that's only really interesting to people who are actually doing the same task - which is hardly anyone. That's not going to be a highly-rated youtube series.
Whereas a magazine series that shows restored classic cars and provides some details and advice, but keeps things light enough you can half-watch while eating and you won't miss too much? Much more accessible, much bigger audience.
> For example, imagine I'm restoring a classic 1980s Mini. There's a lot of detail that's only really interesting to people who are actually doing the same task - which is hardly anyone. That's not going to be a highly-rated youtube series.
I like Project Binky, it's great viewing. But it's kinda on the border of proving my point.
After all, nobody is following along at home, putting a Toyota Celica engine into their own mini.
When they need to make a wiring harness, or configure an ECU, they're not showing it one cable and one adjustment at a time - that would make for very boring viewing, even if it would be useful as reference material for anyone trying to reproduce their project.
Just like a chess youtuber, very few of Project Binky's viewers are there to study, following along with pencil and paper. Most of their viewers are there to be entertained.
I will admit their videos are substantially more technical than most on Youtube. But because of that, they don't make enough money to go full-time. Actually doing the work constrains them to a video every 1-2 months. In contrast, Hikaru has put out 13 youtube videos in the last 7 days.
Rapid-fire, easily accessible content with broad audience appeal brings in the ad revenue that makes a channel self-supporting.
Slowly produced, niche content for study and reference has to be subsidised by the youtuber having another job.
I wish I could provide a useful summary, but I had it on while I was prepping for a meeting so I wasn't really paying attention. I was more surprised at my timing of seeing it on HN, searching for his twitch profile, and then right then he was going through the article I had open in another tab.
I think if you're a subscriber (I'm not) you can replay his stream from earlier.
I do remember he said somethings like...
> 'the chess stuff that they're talking about isn't 100% accurate, but close enough. No one will know/care about that who's reading the article'
> 'it seems the things they're quoting they've pulled from previous streams'
The other lesson is that often the people that succeed are people who can lean into the intensity and are OK with it. For example, look at someone like Michael Jordan -- extremely competitive. But its almost as if that's their fuel. And when they leave competitive environments then they miss them. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates seem to have some of that in them too.
That said, its not something I have. I'm OK not being the world's best at something -- I'm OK just enjoying riding my bike through the park.
'succeed' is kinda loaded here. Your really talking about world best, in that I agree the people who are world best are gonna have to have some innate ability to handle the pressure of competing at world best.
For more general definitions of success, being able to not be so intense can SOMETIMES be a benefit.
I agree that this should always be considered, no matter the activity. But it is hard, and games like Chess make it particularly challenging.
I will start a game of Go, completely relaxed and with the goal of staying relaxed and enjoying the game. Sometimes it works if my opponent falls behind early, but if my opponent is worthy... watch my heart rate over the course of the game.
There is no point in playing if you don't care about the outcome. I wish there was, I wish it was like making a painting, I wish it was nothing more than making something beautiful with the go stones.
It's impossible to play as much Chess as he does and truly not care, but I think he is figuring out ways to care differently, and that might be key.
Hikaru is fun but my personal favorite chess streamer is Eric Rosen, an incredibly chill, laid-back, witty IM who loves gambits and stalemate traps and radiates good vibes on stream. Super funny, super wholesome, and super instructive too!
Carlsen has a huge plus score against him though, I'd expect the match to be extremely one sided. Something in Nakamura's style doesn't work against Magnus.
Of course, but Carlsen - Nakamura is 14 - 1, and 26 draws*. That's a huge winning percentage at top level, other top GMs may have a minus score but not like that.
Not just Carlson.. any of the candidates are capable of beating him … most have higher elo and that elo is well deserved and stupendously hard won at that level. Wesley So beat him in the Grand Prix, he was in trouble once against Esipenko. I don’t think he’ll have as hard of a time against eg Ian Nepomniatchi ( Nepo likes speed which is Hikarus superpower ), But Ding Liren ( depending on Karjakins dq and Lirens play ofc ) Caruana, or Wesley So will beat him easily…
He probably will be wiped. However, this comment would make more sense if he didn't literally beat a lot of good players in classical chess, winning FIDE Grand Prix 2022.
And is currently 16 and has been dropping over the last 8 years. Kasparov also used to be number 1. That's just how it goes. He's a much stronger bullet/blitz player and this isn't news to anyone. There's a reason people are surprised he qualified.
He's 11th in classical currently and there isn't much separation from 4th to 20th. He has a pretty good record against all of his opponents in classical. He's never lost to Rapport, Liren, Duda, or Radjabov. He is 3-2-5 against Nepo, 6-7-33 against Caruana, and he's never played Firouzja.
He reached #2 on the active rating list and #5 on the all-time rating list in classical chess. Do you consider classical chess to be a "fairly obscure" format?
The things I said are true of the poker player Doug Polk. Doug Polk was one of the best 2-player Texas Hold'em poker players on the internet for a couple of years, but only at a point in time where the format was pretty dead. I know very little about Hikaru Nakamura, but it sounds like Hikaru is a much greater chess player than Doug is a poker player. Which is fine, I guess the similarities lie elsewhere.
You think heads-up NLHE found its peak popularity after Black Friday?
As for why it's obscure - that's a separate point. Heads-up poker, as a format, was obscure at its peak as it was when Doug Polk was at his, and as it is now. Poker is almost always played at a table with at least six seats, most often more. Heads-up is just tiny in comparison.
I just opened up my PokerStars client. Out of the many thousands of players currently playing, approximately 15 are playing heads-up cash games. And only two are playing heads-up cash games for medium or high stakes.
Hikaru's win in the Grand Prix was great, but the Candidates is far different. For example, Alireza Firouzja - another member of the upcoming Candidates cycle - has been MIA for a while, likely due to the insane amount of time he is putting into Candidates prep.
Since Hikaru has far fewer recent classical matches than the other upcoming Candidates participants (with the exception of current world #2 Ding Liren, who still needs to finish 30 games before May), he'll have an edge when it comes to preparation. However, unless he prepares like a madman, he'll be at most a wildcard candidate, perhaps beating a favorite or two but unlikely to win it all.
I'll personally be rooting for Ding and Fabi. I like Hikaru as well, but I unfortunately just don't see him beating Magnus in a World Chess Championship.
What I find particularly odd about Hikaru is that he's a top 20 player in the classical chess format, but in the time-limited rapid/blitz formats, he's consistently in the top 2.* Something about his brain must degrade less under time pressure compared to other elite players
This is odd to read because his chat moves pretty quick from what I have seen, in line with streams of similar size. Lots of memes and emote spam.
But in general I agree with you, the embeds can be easily abused and distort the popularity of streamers on twitch, giving some an unfair advantage. In an industry where success depends heavily on the number of eyeballs on your content and where twitch itself prioritizes larger streams it is unacceptable in my opinion. Long term it directly undermines the natural growth of developing streams, the process that has given us a rich and dynamic twitch community in the first place. The topic deserves an article if it hasn't been written about already.
Hikaru instigates too much drama and whines way too much when things don't go his way. Not a fan at all. The best chess streamer is Danya, without a doubt. Those who know, know.
He's very impressive to watch. Whenever I play blitz I can get easily flustered and end up playing terrible moves. He will have 10 seconds left and is still explaining things or just casually chatting and still playing at a high accuracy. I get why people like him.
I agree though. He can be difficult to watch. He acts like a small child when he loses, even sometimes when he doesn't. It's really not surprising to learn from this article that no one in the high level chess world likes him.
The speed at which super grandmasters see the board is jaw drop amazing...inhuman to my experience. While I'm still trying to count the number of pieces ont he board of a chess problem, they've already calculated a dozen likely lines or more.
I thought it was interesting how difficult he found this! Seems like his brain is super hard-wired to play chess a specific way and he was unable to generalize the rules to the extra dimensions? Super fascinating.
You will learn a lot more than from Agadmator, who's channel is very good, but shows a lot of engine lines without too much explanation of the deeper ideas.
Bartholomew's 'climbing the rating ladder' content is at a similar level if you've finished with Naroditsky but I think Chessbrah's 'Building Chess Habits' speedrun is even better for most people. In that one GM Aman sets very simple ways to play and doesn't deviate from them even if it loses him some games while climbing or if there are obvious tactics he can use for a quick win. Naroditsky while great will often go into lines that a lower rated player is very unlikely to see or pull of and is very often winning out of the opening by knowing all the moves to punish suboptimal moves which lower rated players won't know.
Bartholomew and Climbing the Rating Ladder series fan. I sure wish he'd focus on those videos more than his live streaming. The former is much more educational than the latter.
I agree, I think Naroditsky is the best video content in terms of being educational while also being entertaining. Some others are maybe more rigorous, but not as entertaining, or vice versa.
The two have very different content. Hikaru is mostly live blitz play with commentary by one of the best in the world (possibly the best for the formats he plays) while Agadmator is only analysis of typically classical games by an otherwise weaker player.
As for me, I prefer neither and like more educational content that doesn't focus on games at the very top (e.g. Naroditsky's or chessbrah's speedruns) but that doesn't change that Hikaru is more popular than them or Agadmator.
He and Hikaru have different different approaches, with Nakamura being a grandmaster and so has much deeper potential for analysis of his own positions, but agadmator is nevertheless a daily-watch for me. His channel is my favourite thing on YouTube.
No, I love chess but I don't go in for head-grinding through hard positions. I just like playing moves and having fun on an intuitive level. Also sadly forgot to open my comment with "Hello Everyone."
I enjoy agad's balkan charm from time to time. His slow motion finishing bishop moves and his logical meanderings after an obvious statement are fun to watch. And he always keeps a couch for medo to chill on.
Antonio is fantastic! If you like him I would also strongly recommend Eric Rosen's YT and Twitch channels -- he's a very laid-back, wholesome IM who's very funny and very instructive.
At least two of them and likely all 3 are going to be in the candidates, so this is just going to be an entirely different level of competition. The betting odds put Hikaru at <10% chance to win, which seems about right to me. Hikaru was also in trouble at various times in the FIDE Grand Prix but escaped some very bad positions with draws, which against higher level competition he might not be so lucky.
I'm not necessarily a Hikaru fan, but I enjoyed his post-game recaps after the grand prix matches, because that type of analysis isn't something any other top level players are going to do for fear of revealing some weaknesses that opponents can seize upon (and believe me... Hikaru's opponent's teams will be scouting those videos). However, not caring can only get you so far as the level of competition increases.